I witnessed a sad occurrence Tuesday night. I was to meet some people at Perkins... the original Perkins at 60th and south Nicollet. I went inside to see whether my friends had arrived yet, and was astounded to see the place empty except for employees. EMPTY. I've lived in that area for 35 years and have never seen Perkins even close to empty, even when they were open all night every night... even around 3:30 AM when they vacuum the carpet.

I went back outside to have a smoke and wait for my friends. Two cigarettes later (they were waiting for baggage at the airport), only two customers had arrived, a couple who asked me, before parking, if Perkins was open. That's how oddly empty the parking lot looked. When my group gathered, that made a total of 6 customers in the whole of Perkins. Nobody else arrived while we were there.

This Perkins had maintained a separate smoking section throughout the years. Having been there so long, it has, in addition to being part of a national chain, been a popular neighborhood restaurant. It was common for groups to meet there. A large black church group met weekly (in the smoking section), as did the Bridge group from across the street, and local AA members. It was a hangout for hungry area teens (both Richfield and Minneapolis Washburn) and there was once a set of "regulars" who could be found there almost every evening in the smoking section. Sunday mornings, after church, the place would fill with mostly seniors... all dressed up for church and Sunday out-to-eat.

Our waitress that night is an institution at Perkins, about to see her 21st anniversary there. I mentioned to her that I wish they still had a smoking section. Her reply was that a lot of people have said that to her.

I don't know just what effect the smoking ban is going to have on bars and restaurants. From what I've seen and read, a lot of them are going to suffer, and we're going to see some fail and close. The small, non-chain joints who cater to their neighborhood are going to be the hardest hit, while the large chain restaurants that draw customers from further away will be less affected.

What I do know is that there are a lot of smokers and non-smokers who hang out together. Some are formal groups, some are just groups of friends. Since the advent of non-smoking sections (yes, I remember before that), I've met to dine with friends, and we sometimes sat in smoking, sometimes in non-smoking, depending on the mix of people. It was never a tussle to make that decision, probably because for most of us, the company was more important than whether there was smoke or not.

Sadly, the separate areas were not enough to satisfy a few people. Gradually, more restaurants responded to the shrill complaints we've all heard from anti-smokers, and caved in to becoming all non-smoking. Over the years, I've concluded that one reason all that happened is that non-smokers generally eat out more often, and in nicer restaurants than smokers, who tend to have lower incomes. Oddly enough, smoking cigars became an upscale fad during the same period, so a few upscale restaurants also maintained separate sections.

As is always true with those who seek to force others to their will, anti-smokers were not satisfied with separate facilities, nor were they satisfied even with having most restaurants non-smoking and the rest with separate areas. There is no question that the smoking ban was created at the insistence of a small minority of people. If there had been a public hue and cry to eliminate smoking, the remaining restaurant smoking areas wouldn't have prospered.

I have a vision of the people who inflicted the smoking bans on us. Certainly there are exceptions to my vision, but I see a group of well-to-do women (and some men) who delight in simply pushing their desires onto others. I suspect you know the type... they're almost stereotypical here on the south side of Minneapolis... sort of a Lutheran breed of Stepford wives. They are the political minor league, usually of the Democratic Party. They'll be active in church, because they are righteous and like to be seen as progressive and caring, but they're also "movers and shakers". They love to take up causes, usually choosing an emotional cause where facts can be overshadowed by emotional outrage (one of their carefully-honed skills). They ARE sure what is best, not just for themselves and their families, but they know what is best for all of us. Self-righteous, with time and money to spare, in search of causes with which to demonstrate their power... and the smoking ban is just one of many of those demonstrations. These people now essentially "own" the restaurants of Hennepin County... they've brought about one-fourth of the population to heel and made them feel unwelcome.

Who will suffer from the smoking ban?

Oddly enough, those who brought about the smoking ban have most harmed a group of people they would righteously claim to love and cherish... the working poor... minorities, blue-collar workers, immigrants, and retired people. These are the people who will be hit hardest by the smoking ban. These are the people who patronize LOCAL bars and restaurants, and a higher percentage of those people are smokers.

These are people who smoke instead of taking prescription tranquilizers or any of the other mood-altering drugs the more affluent avail themselves of. These are people who smoke as a form of relaxation in a lifestyle that offers fewer pleasures. These are people who CHOOSE to smoke, even though the elitists have repeatedly raised the cost and inconvenience of doing so.

As I've said many times, the secondhand smoke scare is pure invention... absolute bullshit... water contains more toxins than secondhand smoke. There simply is no health hazard. The push toward bans has been funded primarily by money from large pharmaceutical companies as a means to increase sales of their smoking cessation products. Every new ban increases their sales, so they gladly fund all sorts of groups pushing for oppressive measures against smokers.

I accept that some of you don't LIKE smoke. That's your right, and you have a right to be able to reasonably avoid it. Reasonably. You have NO right to simply ban smoking from all bars and restaurants... that is patently unreasonable. Those who don't like smoke had plenty of places all to themselves. Going beyond that was nothing short of oppression.

Like all other regulations, the smoking ban will affect the poorer members of society most, not only because that group contains more smokers, but because the poor have fewer alternatives. It will simply add inconvenience and remove a little pleasure from life. For those of us with fewer resources, we often have to be satisfied with small pleasures that those with more resources just take for granted.

The smoking ban is another case of the "haves" taking from the "have-nots". When the so-called "liberals" of this state begin to realize that every new regulation or code makes life harder and less fun for the poor, perhaps they'll quit pretending to be acting "for the public good".